


Conflicting Realities

by Ashtiel



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Kinda, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Slash, my batshit theory, very subtle slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 06:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14688843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashtiel/pseuds/Ashtiel
Summary: Post-Infinity War, from the perspective of Bucky Barnes."He wasn’t gone. Not really.Bucky knew it, deep in his gut. If Steve Rogers was gone, he would know it."





	Conflicting Realities

**Author's Note:**

> Is this how Marvel is going to fix the end of Infinity War? There's a 99.9% change that the answer is "no." However, this is what I like to think happened.
> 
> Written in one sitting, with minimal editing. Fair warning.

He wasn’t gone. Not really.

Bucky knew it, deep in his gut. If Steve Rogers was gone, he would know it.

Sure, he’d disappeared into a fucking dust cloud, but Bucky had once fallen off a train himself; surviving impossible situations was second nature to them.

And he’d just gotten himself back. He wasn’t going to let Steve off the hook that easily. Not when he’d done so much work for _him_. Everything he did, he did for that star-spangled asshole. Puffing away in a cloud of dust? That was just rude.

So, he pushed Sam away when the shell-shocked man had come to offer him a shoulder to cry on. Sam knew, better than anyone else, what Steve meant to him.

“Come on, man. We’ve gotta _deal_ with this,” Sam had insisted, following him to the small farm T’Challa had given him.

Bucky fought the urge to close the door in his face. “He ain’t gone,” he said.

Sam’s face got all pouty, like if Bucky didn’t start crying, he was going to do it for him. “Bucky, we watched him disappear. He isn’t coming back from that, and we both know it.”

“That’s what you keep sayin’,” Bucky said.

“We _lost_ ,” Sam said. Now, there really were tears in his eyes. Goddamn it.

“Believe me, pal. He ain’t gone. Just you wait,” Bucky growled. And then he really did shut the door in Sam’s face.

* * *

 

Weeks passed. The world mourned.

A ship, carrying five strangers, landed in Wakanda. They said they fought Thanos on some planet, but they didn’t offer any of the news that Bucky wanted to hear. So he went back to his farm.

One of them followed, some snotty man with a cape and a face like he’d stuck a lemon up his ass. He came into his house without asking.

“You do not mourn, although I hear your Captain has died,” he said, his eyes on his steepled fingers.

“He’s not dead,” Bucky replied, arms crossed over his chest. He was getting real sick of having this conversation.

The man tilted his head, the silver streak in his hair gleaming. “Why do you say that?”

“I can feel it.”

“Strange. I can feel it as well. It’s as though this world is a dream, yes?”

Bucky squinted at him. No one had agreed with him so far. “Somethin’ like that,” he said.

“And if I said I could reverse the dream?”

“Put everything back to normal?”

The man nodded.

“Can you?”

The man scratched his chin, then rose to his feet, his cape trailing out behind him as if it had a mind of its own. “Not yet.”

* * *

 

Bucky waited.

He waited, as Wakanda rebuilt itself from the ground up, the country mourning the loss of half its citizens. Bucky was glad Wakanda didn’t have TVs. He couldn’t handle the grief of one country, much less the entire world.

It grated on him. How could they mourn, when none of it was real? Could none of them feel the falseness of this world? It was like they were living in the reflection of a mirror, everything flipped.

* * *

 

The man with the cape came to him one night, his hair awry and his eye glassy. Bucky couldn’t tell if it was madness or genius behind those eyes.

“I know what’s happening,” the man said, as soon as he was across Bucky’s threshold.

Bucky leaned against the doorframe and raised an eyebrow.

“This world, it’s been split into two parts. Thanos didn’t kill half the population, he ripped the fabric of the universe in two, with half of the life in the universe trapped on one side, and half on the other. I spoke with Janus-”

“Janice? Who the hell’s Janice?” Bucky asked. They kept adding new team members every time he turned his back. He was getting real sick of it.

“Janus,” the British man said, his nose upturned. “The God of doorways, the past and future, duality-”

“You’ve been talkin’ to gods." He had to repeat it, just to make sure he’d heard right.

“Only the one. I sought him out to confirm what we already know; this world is not whole.”

“And?”

“He confirmed it.”

Bucky fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Great. Now what?”

“I have a theory,” the man said, leaning forward, his hands braced on the table.

Bucky listened.

* * *

 

It wasn’t hard to find Thanos. Harder than it should have been, without Shuri or Stark’s mastery of gadgets, but it only took a fortnight.

Wanda was unstoppable, once she had an idea in her head. As far as Bucky could tell, finding Thanos became her penance. A bearded man from space that reminded Bucky of Steve in the most absurd way, followed her, seeking revenge more than penance. Wherever the space man went, the sentient tree, the blue body builder, and the bug girl followed.

Bucky and Sam worked as a team. T’Challa gave Bucky a list of places with abnormal energy signatures, and Bucky relayed them to Sam, who went out to scan them. Working together didn’t take many words. In their trio, Steve had always been the talker. Working together without him, it made Bucky want to rip someone apart with his bare hands.

With all hands on deck, they found Thanos. He was sitting on a hill, in a hut, watching over a farm as the sun set around him.

“Sam, get back here,” Bucky said.

“He’s right there,” Sam said. It was more of a growl than anything.

“I know. Now get your ass back here before you do anything stupid. If I don’t get to rip that bastard’s face off myself, you’re gonna feel it.”

Static on the line. Then, a sigh. “Roger that, sergeant.”

* * *

 

They moved on him the next morning.

T’Challa’s pilots dropped them directly on his hut.

If Bucky was in a laughing mood, Thanos’ face would have brought tears to his eyes. But, he was not in a laughing mood. He shot him in the face instead.

Just as the caped man had hypothesized (over and over, every night, as he paced the command center), Thanos’ powers were halved, split between the worlds he’d created.

Bucky could only tell because he didn’t slaughter them all instantly.

Within five minutes, the blue bodybuilder was thrown through the wall of the hut, and he didn’t rise again. There was blood dripping from Wanda’s nose, even though she hadn’t been touched. And the little tree thing was missing his arms.

Thanos had a scratch above his right eye.

Then, he had the audacity to laugh at them.

“Why do you even try?” he asked, head cocked. “I’ve already won.”

“You’ll never win,” Wanda snarled. “Not while we stand.”

“I’ve already balanced the world,” Thanos said. “Taking your lives would only throw it off again. Leave now, and we can both live out our days in peace.”

The spider boy wrapped him in web. The harsh breathing over the comms sounded suspiciously like crying. Maybe that’s why he always wore a mask.

“There will be no peace,” T’Challa said. “Not after what you’ve taken.”

Wanda joined the spider. Her scarlet magic wrapped around Thanos like an electrified net. Thanos broke the hold easily. The spider kept wrapping, and Wanda kept sending out more magic.

The cloaked man saw what they were doing, and he joined them, his hands sparking orange. Bucky wasn’t exactly sure _what_ he was doing, but it seemed to be working because Thanos could only break out of his bonds once a minute instead of every few seconds.

The bug lady jumped on Thanos’ back, wrapping her legs around his neck. She pressed her hands to his head and closed her own eyes. Thanos’ eyes went milky.

This was their chance.

“Now!” Bucky said, as he leapt for Thanos.

He pinned the titan’s free arm to his side as Sam, T’Challa, and the space man pried at the glove.

Thanos thrashed and bellowed like a bull, but he was pinned.

“Almost got it!” Sam grunted.

“Hurry!” Wanda said. Blood was dripping from her eyes like tears. “I can’t hold this much longer.”

Bucky gritted his teeth and held on. He couldn’t do anything until the glove was off.

“Hell yeah!” the space man yelled.

There was a crackling pop, and Sam, T’Challa, and the space man flew across the room. The glove was in their hand.

Wanda slumped, and the bug woman climbed off Thanos’ neck to help.

Thanos’ eyes cleared. He started to roar in rage, but the spider boy shot a wad of web into his mouth. This time, Bucky did laugh.

Then, he punched Thanos in the teeth with his metal fist. One. Twice. Three times. Again and again until his metal knuckles were dented.

The man in the cape, his hands still sparking with orange energy, came up beside him.

“You know you can’t kill him, yes?” he asked.

Bucky punched Thanos in the teeth again. His fist was covered with dark indigo blood.

“Suspected,” Bucky grunted.

“I will banish him to an uninhabitable planet. Without the infinity stones, he will not be able to leave it.”

“Better than-” punch “-he-” punch “-deserves.”

“Most definitely.”

Wanda and the bug lady left, dragging the blue bodybuilder behind them. The tree thing followed. Then, the spider boy and the space man.

Sam and T’Challa stood, side by side, as Bucky exhausted himself.

When he slumped to the ground, Sam swooped down and pulled him back up, throwing Bucky’s arm over his own shoulder.

“Are you finished?” the caped man asked. For once, there didn’t seem to be a hint of sarcastic disapproval in his voice. Just a genuine question.

“Not really,” Bucky said.

The caped man chuckled, then stuck his hand into the infinity gauntlet. Before Bucky could blink, a portal opened beneath Thanos, and he dropped into darkness.

The portal closed, and Bucky stared at the floor with a clenched jaw.

“Wizard,” T’Challa said. “What do we do next?”

“We wait,” the caped man said, sliding the infinity gauntlet from his hand. “They have to get the infinity gauntlet in their reality. Once it’s separated from Thanos, I will feel it, and whoever wields it on their side will assist me in remaking the fabric of reality.”

“How long will that take?” Bucky asked.

“It’s impossible to know.”

Bucky spun on his heels and headed back to his farm.

* * *

 

It took a year.

And then it took a second.

Bucky was about to go down to the river, to wash off a day of manual labor, when someone appeared on the horizon.

In an instant, he knew.

They didn’t hurry. Hastiness was for desperate people, and Bucky had never been desperate. He’s always known.

They met in the middle, in the valley T’Challa had given him.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said. His eyes were tired, his face gaunt, and he was the most beautiful thing Bucky had ever seen.

“Heya, Steve.”


End file.
